


Tonight I Write The Saddest Lines

by PastelWonder



Category: House of Cards (US TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-09
Updated: 2016-03-09
Packaged: 2018-05-25 14:41:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6199036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PastelWonder/pseuds/PastelWonder
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Let me take care of him.”</p><p>Strange how emotion can twist and turn words as they travel from brain to mouth. What he meant was,  I’ll take care of it,  or maybe even,  Let me take care of you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tonight I Write The Saddest Lines

He’s been talking a full fifteen minutes before he realizes she isn’t listening.

 

Making small, “mm-hm”s and "yes, of course”s, but not really _listening._ He looks over his shoulder for what she might be staring at and finds only empty wall space.

“Claire?”

 

“Mm,” she nods politely, a ghost of a smile on her lips that’s miles away from the corners of her eyes.

 

“Claire,” he repeats a little louder.

 

A sharp, sudden inhale through her nose. “Oh, Francis. I’m so sorry. I must have wandered off.”

 

Another whisper of a smile, trying for sheepish this time, rather than attentive.

 

“What were you saying?” Her voice picks up at the end, her head cocks ever-so-slightly to one side, _I’m paying attention._

 

His face softens; a uncontrolled response to her fragility. Like blinking at a gust of wind. Like sighing.

 

He does sigh.

 

She takes it as a reprimand, raising her chin in an almost imperceptible act of defiance. _You don’t own me._

 

 _Oh, but I do, my darling Claire,_ he thinks with so much fondness it aches. In the center of his chest, right behind his sternum, where he keeps her tucked away from the rest of himself. The parts that want to eat her alive-

 

 _Focus, Frank,_ he chides.

 

“Dahlin’, are you alright? You seem…” he trails off, hoping she’ll fill in the blank.

 

She doesn't.

 

“Yes.” Embarrassed at misreading his concern for rebuke, she ducks her head then forces a wider, brighter smile. “Yes, I’m fine. What were you saying?”

 

He shifts, moving a little closer to her, and strokes his hand down her arm.

 

Her flinch tells him everything he needs to know.

 

“What happened?” He’s not really _asking_ her, but he phrases it as a question. Quiet, measured, to give the illusion she has the choice whether or not to tell him.

 

She makes a point of hesitating, if only to keep up her end of the farse. “Someone- I ran into someone today. Someone I went to school with. At Harvard.”

 

His mind is already whirring, flipping through files and simulating scenarios. He tacks the clues on the walls of his reasoning like he’s solving a crime. “They mentioned McGinnis?”

 

It’s a leap, but he feels confident. The way she’s folding in on herself, her too-bright eyes...

 

“Yes.”

 

Heat, liquid and scalding, pours across his chest and into his gut.

 

It’s a rage he can’t live with - the righteousness of it, how metallic and festered it tastes in his mouth. It has that personal quality, the way his loathing of his father does, or his contempt for his weak-willed mother. Only this anger is hotter, sharper.

 

 _Because it’s not for me,_ he thinks with a wry smile.

 

“Let me take care of him.”

 

Strange how emotion can twist and turn words as they travel from brain to mouth. What he meant was, _I’ll take care of it,_ or maybe even, _Let me take care of you._

 

She's looking somewhere over his shoulder again as she tells him softly, sternly, “No, Francis.”

 

He sighs again, and this time it _is_ an admonishment. His shoulders stoop forward, sagging under the weight of so much grief.

 

Watching her - sunken-in, small, devastated - is unbearable.

 

He’s not a man who likes to beg (well, perhaps there _is_ a time and place he enjoys a little frantic pleading, but this is most emphatically _not_ it) but he’ll beg her.

 

"Why won’t you let me?”

 

“Because I deserve it.” That’s the last thing he ever expected to hear. All the times they talked about it - his tones hushed and gentle, hers whispered and manic - she’s never said this.

 

But the tilt in her chin and the way her eyes narrow means she’s serious.

 

“Claire. How can you-”

 

“Not then. I didn’t deserve it, then.” She swallows, and for one wild second he’s seized with the fear she’ll choke. “I deserve it now. I’ve earned it.”

 

She nods, more to herself, or maybe even to McGinnis’s ghost (Frank is sure he’s lurking somewhere nearby, watching, feeding).

 

“I’ve earned it,” she repeats.

 

“Claire.” He takes her into his arms, ignoring her weak press at his chest. One arm around her waist, his hand cupping her head, cradling her. Protecting her.

 

He holds her to him, trying to soak up her pain like a sponge.

 

“I’m bad, Francis. I know it - in my heart.” Her voice is small and strangled.

 

“You’re not bad,” he soothes. He strokes her hair. “You’re perfect.”

 

She snorts, a unladylike sound.

 

“You are.” He leans back just enough to see her, catching her chin between his fingers. The halves of his face reflect in her bright blue eyes.

 

He starts soft and low, barely above a hum. A rumble from his chest. “Honey in the rock and the sugar don't stop... Gonna bring a bottle to my bay-beh... Go tah sleep you little bay-beh…”

 

“Francis-”

 

“Momma's gone away and your daddy's gonna stay… Didn't leave nobody but the bay-beh...” A little stronger now, a little deeper. “Go tah sleep you little bay-beh…”

 

She smiles, a real smile. Sad and sweet.

 

His voice warbles a little on the next line, chest pinching tight as her eyes wander tenderly over his face. "Everybody's gone in the cotton and the corn... Didn't leave nobody but my bay-beh... You're a sweet little bay-beh..."

 

She lays her head on his shoulder, her hands on his chest pressed between them, and let’s him sway them gently side-to-side as he sings. “You and me and the Devil makes three… Don't need nobody but my bay-beh…”

 

A sigh, and then a delicate shift in her weight, like she’s handing something off. He catches it easily against himself, into himself.

 

This is perhaps the most quiet and dignified exorcism there ever was.

 

He settles back into a hum, following the tune as he rubs small circles between her shoulder blades.

 

“Claire?”

 

“Yes?” she whispers. He can’t see her face, but he thinks it’s relaxed, her eyes closed.

 

Slowly, he peels her back from him to press a tender kiss to her forehead. “Let me take care a’him. Please.”

 

“Ok, Francis.”

 

“Thank you, dahlin’.”

 

She nods once, then lays her head back on his shoulder. “Don’t stop singing, please. It's beautiful.”

 

He strokes a hand over her hair. “I wouldn’t dream of it.”

**Author's Note:**

> I haven't seen all the episodes, but I do love this pairing. He's so unapologetically sociopathic, yet his reaction to McGinnis was entirely genuine. If not love, then what does he feel for his darling Claire?
> 
> Just a thought :)
> 
> Your comments and kudos are always appreciated.


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